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In the UK the direction is inverted - Northern accents tend to be discriminated against, some people opt to try to maintain southern counties or city accents.

by Jedd 3y ago

In the UK the direction is inverted - Northern accents tend to be discriminated against, some people opt to try to maintain southern counties or city accents. https://www.theguardian.com/careers/accent-hinder-job-prospects https://www.theguardian.com/careers/accent-hinder-job-prospe... (Was David Tennant's Doctor Who an example of this bias? ; ) I'd guess there's a lot more variation in British accents, despite being such a tiny landmass. Here in Australia I struggle to pick regional accents - sure, there's a lot fewer of us, but the geographical spread is much larger, and I'd presumed that would be a stronger factor for dialect drift.

EdwardDiego 3y ago
Likewise in NZ, we only have one very distinctive accent, the Southland one that likes to roll the Rs. But as a Mainlander (i.e., the South Island), I can often pick when someone is from Auckland, as there's more of a Polynesian influence on their vowels. (Auckland is sometimes to referred to as the unofficial capital of Tonga/Samoa as the populations of both peoples in Auckland exceeds that in their countries). In contrast, when I visited family in Rugby, UK, my uncle would amuse people at parties by parodying the (many!) varying accents found along the 55km trip from Rugby to Birmingham. I suppose it's the difference that several centuries of history makes.
ghaff 3y ago
>I'd guess there's a lot more variation in British accents, despite being such a tiny landmass. That was the whole point of Pygmalion of course.
weinzierl 3y ago
Did you mean Christopher Eccleston? As an ESL learner I found the ninth doctor hard to understand sometimes but had no troubles with the tenth. I think David Tennant hides his Scottish accent pretty well, but again I'm not a native speaker. Christopher Eccleston on the other hand claimed himself, that his northern accent had held him back. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43139805.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43139805.amp
- Jedd 3y ago
  Nope, definitely David Tennant - I hadn't seen him in anything prior to Doctor Who, so was very surprised when later hearing him with a broad Scottish accent in an interview. I've heard him discuss the preference (it's more unsettling / convincing) for middle-class English accents when playing a conventional bad guy role.
monkeycantype 3y ago
I can pick someone from Gippsland the region of Victoria I grew up in. What’s striking about Australian accents is how much they have shifted with access to international media and immigration. If you watch footage from the mid 20th century, especially news reporters interviewing the public, the public and the reporters sound very different and no one sounds like either of them anymore
- TMWNN 3y ago
  >I can pick someone from Gippsland the region of Victoria I grew up in. What’s striking about Australian accents is how much they have shifted with access to international media and immigration. My understanding is that Australia is unusual for (as Jedd said) not having regional accents despite the country's (geographic) size. Am I mistaken?
  - sgtnoodle 3y ago
    In my experience spending time in Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne, Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney, variations mainly come down to the relative density of curse words within a sentence. Anecdotally, the density trends upward with individual intelligence.
    - cam_l 3y ago
      Is that a very subtle slight against Adelaide?
      - sgtnoodle 3y ago
        No, not at all! The most vulgar and intelligent people I met over there were in Adelaide.
  - monkeycantype 3y ago
    Australia has regional variation, but English has only been spoken here since British conquest 200 years ago, so there wasn't long for strong variation to develop before mass media connected people to the sound of voices from other places. There were some regional differences the mix of backgrounds of immigrants, but not to the extent that this occurred in the US or Canada - until after world war two, when large numbers of people began to migrate to Australia from countries other than UK and Ireland. I spent some of my childhood in Gippsland and some in inner city Melbourne in North Melbourne and the way we spoke was influenced by the large numbers of immigrant kids, especially Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, Chinese and Lebanese kids. I think professionally people code-switch to a neutral accent, but when people relax I think you can hear this influence in accents of people who grew up in areas with large immigrant populations, and that this variation is soaking into the mainstream, and shifting our idea of the neutral Australian accent, and the mix of ethnicities coming to Melbourne was a little different to those going to Sydney and I think you can hear it. So does she: https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/7166082455294758145 https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/71660824552947581...
deleted 3y ago
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joker_minmax 3y ago
This is true, but in some polls the Geordie (northeast) accent was rated the most attractive in England. I have to agree, it sounds much more folksy and warm, and less grating than the posh accent. My friend who went to university in Belfast said you're better off in the tougher parts of Northern Ireland without a posh accent too, even if a northern accent is discriminated against in the London business scene. Everything has its benefits and drawbacks...
- RichardCA 3y ago
  I always remembered this movie because of the way accents played such an integral part of the story. James Bolam is still a working actor and master of the Geordie accent. https://youtu.be/SxwCU_pD5ME https://youtu.be/SxwCU_pD5ME

by Jedd 3y ago

EdwardDiego 3y ago

Likewise in NZ, we only have one very distinctive accent, the Southland one that likes to roll the Rs. But as a Mainlander (i.e., the South Island), I can often pick when someone is from Auckland, as there's more of a Polynesian influence on their vowels. (Auckland is sometimes to referred to as the unofficial capital of Tonga/Samoa as the populations of both peoples in Auckland exceeds that in their countries). In contrast, when I visited family in Rugby, UK, my uncle would amuse people at parties by parodying the (many!) varying accents found along the 55km trip from Rugby to Birmingham. I suppose it's the difference that several centuries of history makes.

ghaff 3y ago

>I'd guess there's a lot more variation in British accents, despite being such a tiny landmass. That was the whole point of Pygmalion of course.

weinzierl 3y ago

Did you mean Christopher Eccleston? As an ESL learner I found the ninth doctor hard to understand sometimes but had no troubles with the tenth. I think David Tennant hides his Scottish accent pretty well, but again I'm not a native speaker. Christopher Eccleston on the other hand claimed himself, that his northern accent had held him back. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43139805.amp https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43139805.amp

Jedd 3y ago
Nope, definitely David Tennant - I hadn't seen him in anything prior to Doctor Who, so was very surprised when later hearing him with a broad Scottish accent in an interview. I've heard him discuss the preference (it's more unsettling / convincing) for middle-class English accents when playing a conventional bad guy role.

monkeycantype 3y ago

I can pick someone from Gippsland the region of Victoria I grew up in. What’s striking about Australian accents is how much they have shifted with access to international media and immigration. If you watch footage from the mid 20th century, especially news reporters interviewing the public, the public and the reporters sound very different and no one sounds like either of them anymore

TMWNN 3y ago
>I can pick someone from Gippsland the region of Victoria I grew up in. What’s striking about Australian accents is how much they have shifted with access to international media and immigration. My understanding is that Australia is unusual for (as Jedd said) not having regional accents despite the country's (geographic) size. Am I mistaken?
- sgtnoodle 3y ago
  In my experience spending time in Adelaide, Darwin, Melbourne, Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney, variations mainly come down to the relative density of curse words within a sentence. Anecdotally, the density trends upward with individual intelligence.
  - cam_l 3y ago
    Is that a very subtle slight against Adelaide?
    - sgtnoodle 3y ago
      No, not at all! The most vulgar and intelligent people I met over there were in Adelaide.
- monkeycantype 3y ago
  Australia has regional variation, but English has only been spoken here since British conquest 200 years ago, so there wasn't long for strong variation to develop before mass media connected people to the sound of voices from other places. There were some regional differences the mix of backgrounds of immigrants, but not to the extent that this occurred in the US or Canada - until after world war two, when large numbers of people began to migrate to Australia from countries other than UK and Ireland. I spent some of my childhood in Gippsland and some in inner city Melbourne in North Melbourne and the way we spoke was influenced by the large numbers of immigrant kids, especially Italian, Greek, Vietnamese, Chinese and Lebanese kids. I think professionally people code-switch to a neutral accent, but when people relax I think you can hear this influence in accents of people who grew up in areas with large immigrant populations, and that this variation is soaking into the mainstream, and shifting our idea of the neutral Australian accent, and the mix of ethnicities coming to Melbourne was a little different to those going to Sydney and I think you can hear it. So does she: https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/7166082455294758145 https://www.tiktok.com/@theactualkoi/video/71660824552947581...

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

joker_minmax 3y ago

This is true, but in some polls the Geordie (northeast) accent was rated the most attractive in England. I have to agree, it sounds much more folksy and warm, and less grating than the posh accent. My friend who went to university in Belfast said you're better off in the tougher parts of Northern Ireland without a posh accent too, even if a northern accent is discriminated against in the London business scene. Everything has its benefits and drawbacks...

RichardCA 3y ago
I always remembered this movie because of the way accents played such an integral part of the story. James Bolam is still a working actor and master of the Geordie accent. https://youtu.be/SxwCU_pD5ME https://youtu.be/SxwCU_pD5ME